Mandarin Film has worked on some charity and pro bono work in the past, but never in a systematic way. Our Fresh Start initiative is a chance for us to team up with vibrant communities of organisations, volunteers and activists trying to make a difference, and in a small way help to tilt things in their favour.

As a part of the Mandarin Film’s Fresh Start initiative, we produced a video for the “Beijing Waters” NGO’s annual research launch.

Communicating your ideas is also a critical factor for success. Making a video that captures the essence of their goal often helps tip investors,volunteers and even the general public into a new way of thinking.

“Beijing Waters” is an organization that arranges volunteer activities and investigations. Beijing rivers and wetlands ecological data collection let the NGO fill the gaps in existing data, publish the results and enhance public awareness of the rivers ecological situation to assure its future conservation and advocacy.

“We arrived to Jumahe. In Beijing, there is a so few non-polluted rivers like this one,” said Patrick (Wang Yibin), getting out of the car.

He is one of the volunteers, who arrived to the Juma River with his wife to take part in the “Beijing Waters” NGO research.

“My work is pretty stressful,” shared Patrick. “I have tried different ways to release this pressure till the moment I realized, when you go back to nature, it makes you calm and relaxed, and makes you appreciate what you have now.”

However, what we really face now is pollution, climate change and shortage of water – not necessarily the most stress-free of challenges! In October 2017 Mandarin Film team joined the “Beijing Waters” voluntary activities to see with our own eyes how the research on bio-diversity and river quality is done.

When I was small, I went to the river every day to swim and catch fish there. Due to the city and village development, rivers become like you see now, stated Li Cheng, who has been living in that place since childhood.

What we saw was beautiful, sunny day with blue sky and no smog, but the river landscape with its shallow waters and narrow riverbanks full of piles of rubbish, old, broken furniture, dry plants and smelly rotting food was dismaying. It was our first stop at the Juma River.

We had three stops during that day, moving along the stream of the river and exploring it from the worst part to the cleanest part. On our last stop, nature was picturesque: clean water, steep cliff, mountains, chirping birds and horses walking around, giving hope that the environment can be better.

“We think optimistically that the future will be better if people work on it,” says Xiao Yuru, Head of “Beijing Waters”.

“Beijing Waters” is one of the projects of the NGO with the unofficial name “Let’s protect environment together.” Their first project is collaboration with schools for environment education, the second one is help local people organizing their own environment protection groups, and the third one is “Beijing waters” to do research on river creatures and ways people influence them as well as the river quality.

Over three months Mandarin Film worked with Beijing Waters to produce a brand video that encapsulated their mission statement and documented the work they were doing. The movie was released on Dec.2, on the “Beijing Waters” press conference.

In the film, you can find out the key reasons ‘why’, see which waters are endangered and what volunteers do there, and understand the essence of what a better future might look like.

Mandarin Film is a film and TV production company with more than 10 years experience and over 500 projects in China under its belt.

We often travel to the most remote regions and film in extreme environments. We have seen people and organizations triumph over insurmountable odds. We have seen (and filmed) humanity’s indomitable spirit.

We would like to try to give something back. We have done some charity and pro bono work in the past but never in a systemized way.

This leads us to teaming up with Vibrant Communities. We would like to offer our pro bono support to organizations who share the above vision and have the tools and drive to make it happen.

If you own/work for an organisation working for positive outcomes in the community that you believe could meaningfully benefit from some focused support from professional services companies like Mandarin Film. We would love to hear from you. Mail us at info@mandarinfilm.com, and check out our website www.mandarinfilm.com

Popular shared bikes have brought great convenience to many people who find their daily commute a hassle in big cities across China. Now that we have the colorful dockless bikes within reach in a handy fashion, what’s next?

Well, the guys over at Bee-fly are counting on the next generation of Chinese hipsters to scoot their battery-operated shared scooters into a new era of shared-scooter transportation!

Mandarin Film worked with Bee-Fly and produced the Bee-Fly launch video entitled “One More Choice in your City Transportation Armoury!”

We are not new to the concept of shared economy. The challenge is how to create an outstanding branded video that people can remember? It is about the concept, and of course about how to produce a high quality video under a tight budget.

Mandarin Film produced the video ’script to screen’, from coming up with and finalizing concept options to delivery to a full scripted shoot, edit and delivery in an incredibly tight turnaround of three weeks.

Professional actors were used and awe-inspiring locations were scouted that tapped into the essence of the ‘Beijing spirit’ as well as what the scooters were all about – adding some drive and distance into Beijing’s shared bike options.

Take a look at the video and see if you agree – and we wish the Bee-fly team all the best with their launch!

Mandarin Film is proud to have been a production partner to this amazing film, an endeavor of over three years involving scores of talented people from China, the UK and beyond.

“From BBC Earth Films, the studio that brought you Earth, comes the long-awaited sequel – Earth: One Amazing Day, an astonishing journey revealing the awesome power of the natural world, narrated by the Oscar-winning American movie icon, Robert Redford.”

This is a landmark film in many ways. A true China-UK collaboration that will be of key interest to the wider industry as it is the first film to be produced under the new UK-China film treaty, signed by President Xi Jinping and then Prime Minister David Cameron in 2014.

A co-production between BBC Earth Films and China’s Shanghai Media Group, Mandarin Film played a key role not only in helping facilitate the film within the terms of the treaty, but also by shooting key elements in China, and, perhaps most importantly, helping ensure that the Chinese version was every bit as good as the international one.

A year’s preparation went into pinpointing the perfect Chinese director (Fan Lixin), screenwriter (Yan Geling) and narrator (Jackie Chan) for their roles, as well as recruiting the best below the line talent that China has to offer, including producers, cameramen, sound engineers, even accountants who could take on a project of this international complexity.